


heart ringing, take the call

by succulent (capra)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Getting Together, Long Distance Relationship, Love Confessions, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, confessing over the phone, mutual pining (resolved), rating for cussing because Yuri gotta Yuri, relationship reveal kind of??? because boys are bad at communicating?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/succulent
Summary: The day that Yuri finds out that Otabek is his soulmate is the day that Yuri finds out that Otabek has already KNOWN that, for the last two hundred and forty-five days.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68
Collections: The Yuri!!! on Ice Secret Santa - Edition 2020





	heart ringing, take the call

**Author's Note:**

> hi all, happy holidays, i hope everyone is staying safe! here's a bit of serotonin specially made for MrsCalculation on tumblr - I hope you like your gift! 
> 
> the request was for canonverse, humor, pining, or soulmates, so I decided to see if I could manage all of that in one short fic. hopefully it worked!
> 
> In this universe, a visible mark of your soulmate's name appears on your skin, and yours appears on their skin. This happens on the first birthday they have after you both have fully fallen in love. That means that on your birthday, they'd get the mark, and on their birthday, you'd get it. Hopefully that's not too confusing, but if it is don't worry, the specifics don't matter so much, Yura would be cranky-happy no matter what! ;)
> 
> title is from White Lies' song "Tokyo."

heart ringing, take the call  
.  
.  
.  
  
The day that Yuri finds out that Otabek is his soulmate is the day that Yuri finds out that _Otabek_ has already known that, for the last two hundred and forty-five days.

Because Otabek's birthday is on fucking _Halloween_ , that meant that it landed right at the end of the Skate Canada weekend, with Internationaux de France coming up the next weekend. Yuri, who drew placement at IdF, is still in St. Petersburg, working through his final few days before his first Grand Prix placement of the season. And Otabek, fresh off Skate Canada with a silver medal behind JJ, is still in Montreal, sleeping off the gala and banquet before his flight home the following morning. In Montreal, the clock rolls over from October 30th to October 31st, and in St Petersburg, seven hours ahead, Yuri collapses out of a layback spin with a groan, clutching his thigh. Yakov freaks out, of course, and honestly so does Yuri, though he isn't about to fucking let _on,_ obviously. What the fuck had made him fall? He'd been in perfect form, everything had felt fine, and then suddenly, a searing pain, like someone was carving graceful, excruciating scrollwork into the outside of the thigh of his free leg. All he can think about is the competition coming up, how little he can afford an injury right now. This can't be happening. He can't be injured, he can't be!

Yuri gets his blade guards on, hobbling off the ice and into the locker room, and strips off his leggings. There on the outer flank of his left thigh, nestled in the deep groove between his sharply toned and defined quads, letters in beautiful Cyrillic script have spelled out one name with a shimmering, iridescent gleam:

Бека

_'Beka.'_

Yuri sits there looking at it for a while.

The bench in the locker room is cold on his half-bare ass, but whatever; Yuri's Russian. He's used to cold. If he pulled his leggings back up again, he'd cover up the mark, and honestly, fuck that. He can't look away from it. The mark shimmers, energy racing around the loops of the lettering, rising up onto Yuri's skin out of his blood. The pain, as everyone knows, comes from the transmutation of lifeblood into the visible, tangible marking of connection and commitment. It appears at the stroke of midnight on your soulmate's birthday, on their first birthday after both of your souls have reached out for each other. Metaphysically there's all sorts of theories about latent intentional energies and leylines and shit. Colloquially, everyone knows it's just this: if your soulmate doesn't love you back, neither of you will get the marks. And if they never do, neither of you will ever know what could have been.

There's all sorts of movies and songs and shit about it, about defying soul marks, or making them happen by your own will, or seeing them fade away. Yuri's always thought all of that was fucking stupid. That's not how it works. And who cares, anyway? You can be in love without a mark, and a lot of people are - maybe most people, nobody's really sure about the odds. And, again, he's never _cared_ \- not just about soulmates, but about the whole idea of relationships in general. There was the ice, and his ambition, and training. He didn't feel like holding back anything, not if it would keep him from his gold, and falling in love could only possibly hold him back, right? There was no way that love or dating could match up to what he felt on the ice, doing what he is certain he was fucking _born_ to do.

That was before Otabek.

God, damned, Otabek.

Yuri's had a year or something to get used to it. The fact, that is, that Otabek has busted straight through everything Yuri'd thought he'd known about his life plan. So Yuri's been planning on maybe talking to Otabek at the Final - because of course they were both going to make it to the Final, _obviously._ So, well, maybe they'd talk there. They've been flirty, and they talk and message each other constantly, but their lives don't leave a lot of space for seeing each other in person. They're rarely enough even in the same time zone.

But Yuri still yearns.

So, he'd decided, at the Final he would get the balls to ask Otabek how serious all...their _stuff_ was. To find out, really, what Barcelona had meant to Otabek. Flirting is nice and the past year, drawing ever closer, has been exhilarating in ways Yuri didn't even know he wanted. But now... he has to know for sure. Because Yuri's figured out what Barcelona meant to him. What _all_ of this is for him.

He's been feeling a pull, a _want,_ for Otabek's company, Otabek's attention, Otabek's _presence,_ that's almost as strong as his drive for skating. And the fact that anything could even come close to that obsession, that calling? The idea that anyone other than his grandfather could be that important to him?

Well, he's been thinking. A lot.

So he sits in the locker room, staring at his thigh, at the gleaming letters of Beka's name engraved in his skin, permanent, real, _certain,_ and before he's really thought any further about it, Yuri has his cellphone out, line open and ringing Otabek's number.

The line connects with a fuzzy click and some fabric shuffling. There's a beep, and then Otabek's voice is clear. He's got Yuri on speakerphone. Probably still in bed in his hotel after the gala.

"Mn'ello? Yura?"

"What the fuck, Altin!"

Yuri can almost see the face Otabek makes. He's done it on video chat plenty of times. "What the fuck, what the fuck, Plisetsky?" he returns. "What did I do this time."

" _My birthday is in fucking March, you asshole!_ " Yuri yells. There's a scuffle, and then Otabek's voice is much clearer, and much closer.

"Hold on, I was asleep." A click. "I'm turning the light on. I'm up. What's this about your birthday?"

"Happy fucking birthday to you, you shithead," Yuri says, voice caught somewhere between anger and a tight sort of choking wet feeling. "Look at your mark!"

"My...my what?" More fabric sounds. "Hang on, I'm getting on video." The request comes over, and Yuri stabs at the screen, accepting the video request. The picture that pops up is mostly dark, with Otabek's handsome features outlined from one side in warm yellow from the bedside lamp in his hotel room. Yuri makes sure that the thumbnail video of his side is squarely focused on his thigh, so that when the video comes up on Otabek's end, the first thing he sees is his own name, shimmering back at him from Yuri's skin.

Otabek draws breath, just a quiet one, softer than a gasp. "Yura..."

" _Yeah,_ " Yuri snaps, whipping the picture up to show his own face. He glares at Otabek, eyes narrowed to glower furiously at his friend, and to push the water gathering in the corners of his eyes out of his damn vision so he can see. It spills over, streaking his cheeks. He refuses to call it tears, but there's a lot of it, and his heart feels like it's being yanked in half, and both halves are headed upward, maybe toward heaven, maybe just high enough to jump a quad axel: impossibly, wonderfully high. "Yeah, you fuckhead. What the hell!"

"Do you...Do you not want this?" Otabek asks, clearly confused, scrubbing his eyes to try to wake up. Yuri has one moment of brief consideration that maybe he's being too harsh, it _is_ midnight where Otabek is - and then he discards it.

"Of course I fucking do, that's how it works," Yuri says, petulant. "Don't be stupid. Why didn't you tell me? Where's yours? How long've you known?"

Otabek has the grace to look chagrined. "Well, I mean, I didn't _know,_ not for sure..."

Yuri rolls his eyes. "Oh my god you're so stupid. Of course you knew! Yours showed up on my birthday, didn't it? Didn't it!"

Otabek smiles, and Yuri hates him even more, because how the fuck can he just make Yuri _stop being mad_ with nothing but a dumb goofy smile like that?

"It did," Otabek says.

"Well then fucking show me!" Yuri snaps.

The door of the locker room creaks open, and Yuuri pokes his head in the door, looking concerned. "Yura, we heard you yelling, and we were wondering if--"

"Fuck off, Katsudon," Yuri snaps, waving his free hand at him to shoo him away. "I'm having a fucking relationship crisis here, go away!"

"Oh. Oh! _...Oh._ Oh dear. Okay, um, well, bye then," Yuuri says, and then right before the door closes, he adds in a cheery shout, very quickly, "Congratulations on your silver, Otabek!"

Yuri flushes red.

"Well," Otabek says, calm as anything, as if it's completely no big deal that Katsudon just figured out exactly what's happening, even though it's Yuri's private business. But he says it as he's stripping off his shirt, peering at himself in the video like it's a mirror. Yuri looks too, as Otabek twists around, angling his body to show Yuri the bold print of text on the back of his right shoulder blade.

"It's not like I've made my feelings for you subtle," he says, again with that damn smile, and Yuri could just throttle him. Except he _can't,_ Otabek is half a fucking world away, and how the fuck dare he be so fucking far away when this shit happens! What happened to Yuri's mark-reveal-day kisses? Yuri feels cheated, and also elated, and that's just too fucking much emotion to be dealing with all at once. It's making him very pink.

So is the sight of Otabek's beautifully deep skin, muscles outlined in dramatic, alluring contours of shadow and light in the dark of his hotel room, and in the center of it, shimmering in the same iridescent color as the mark on Yuri's thigh, is Yuri's own name.

Yuri spends a long moment just looking at it shimmer, the brightest thing in the room, half the world away. Right there, in Otabek's skin, that's him. That's his name.

They're real. Really, really real.

"...I was going to fucking ask you," he says, and his voice is embarrassingly soft and small, but Otabek's expression glows like the kind of twilight that's rich and colorful, momentary and breathtaking. It makes you want to wrap yourself up in it like bedsheets and never untangle yourself again.

"Ask me?"

"Yeah," Yuri grumps. He's rubbing over his mark with his thumb, and the ache of it, given that it's just appeared and the transmutation is fresh, is sharp and not great, but it's _there_ and it's _real_ and Yuri has long known bruises and aches are just the price you pay to earn something rare, something worth having.

"At the Final. I was going to ask you what we are. If you...felt the same."

Otabek's voice sounds thick, and Yuri watches his eyes shift, a crease forming and deepening between his brows. "Does this answer it for you?"

"Yeah, but I'm still pissed at you," Yuri says, and Otabek's yearning frown shifts, becoming a confused one. Yuri clicks his tongue impatiently. "My birthday is at Worlds, you fucker. If you'd gotten your ass together and fallen for me sooner, we'd both have had marks by then, and we could have done this in person."

Otabek laughs, and Yuri wants to bottle the sound up and keep it all to himself. "Oh, you think I was the slow one?" he teases. Yuri's frown stays firm.

"Yeah, I fucking do," he says.

"Well then we'll have to battle that out at the Final," Otabek says. He reaches over his right shoulder with his left hand, pressing fingertips into his mark. Heat flashes through Yuri, under his skin, and eyes and mouth wide, he looks to Otabek expectantly.  
  
" _That_ part is true?" he says, wonderingly. Otabek, looking just as startled, and just as intrigued, swallows and nods. Yuri digs his own thumb into the mark on his thigh and watches Otabek's breath catch, cheeks flushing. "Oh, hell yes," Yuri says. "That's a hell of a consolation prize."

"You're - supposed to be at _practice,_ " Otabek protests. His eyes are dark, though, and he shifts on the hotel bed, getting more comfortable. Yuri snickers.

"Oh, but I fell, you see. I'd better go home and ice it for a while to make sure it won't become a lasting problem."

"I have a flight," Otabek tries. Yuri shakes his head.

"You kept me waiting for fucking-- how long is it, like seven months?"

"Two hundred forty-five days," Otabek says, immediately. "Between your birthday and mine."

Yuri scowls. "Two hundred fucking forty-five days you could have told me you'd gotten my mark, and you didn't."

"I was _waiting,_ " Otabek says. "To be sure."

"Well, now you fucking are." Again Yuri presses on his mark, gratified to watch Otabek's eyes fly wider, to see him slump back against the headboard of his hotel bed with a slightly short of breath gasp. "And _I'm_ not the waiting type."

Otabek licks his lips. "How long is it until you get home?"

Yuri's already pulling his leggings up, putting the phone down on the floor between his skates and leaning forward to unlace them. "The train ride is forty-five minutes."

Otabek nods.

Yuri whips off one skate and turns to the next one. "And I plan on rubbing out this new _'bruise'_ of mine the whole way home."

" _Yura._ " Otabek's gasp would be horrified if it wasn't so heated.

"Save your complaints, Altin. You owe me this."

Otabek swallows and nods. "Anything you want, Yura. You should know that by now."

That stops Yuri cold; his fingers fumble on his laces and he looks at his phone, at Otabek's warm expression. Maybe nobody else would see it, but Yuri can read the adoration in Otabek's calm eyes. He blushes even darker, and nods.

"Well, no backing out now. I've got your signature right here, binding contract and all, you know," he says, embarrassed. Again he touches the mark, but this time it's gently, a soft stroke, and Otabek's eyes close softly in turn. It's not as good as a hug, not as good as burying his face in Otabek's chest and breathing deep of his scent and his steadiness, but it's something.

It'll get them through.

It's only thirty-nine days to the Final, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> comments sustain and power me. please let me know what lines worked for you, this is unbeta'd so I hunger for validation XD
> 
> you can find me on twitter at @caprafic, though i'm not very funny there.
> 
> thank you for reading!


End file.
